


The Star Thing

by Digigal_transbian



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27847530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Digigal_transbian/pseuds/Digigal_transbian
Summary: A burning bright light ejects from a far away star and crashes into a populated moon, devastating the nearby town.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	The Star Thing

On the far side of the Cygnus region of the Milky Way, a solar flare jets from the surface of a star, launching a bright light at great speeds through the vast emptiness. The bright light streaks through the cosmos like a meteor, with a heat like the pin of a star careening through the endless abyss until it finds somewhere to land.

It crashes into an inhabited moon a few months after escaping the star.

And everything in several miles burns in a violent holocaust of molten ash and dust.

☆◇☆

When the light crashed down on Xlordan, a moon of Zerkovia, fire tore through the landscape violently. A crater of molten soil and stone formed where it landed, glowing with the wrathful intensity of a star. Anything nearby immediately burst into flames and half of the town melted. The remaining half of the town of Rkoveir was deemed too hot to be survivable without extreme caution, and evacuation efforts began immediately.

What a drag. Either the crater was caused by a strange meteor or unauthorized weapons testing.

Detective Liv Dialoca glares at the reports with a faint scowl. Either way, the ADF wants answers, and they don't care how they get them. The Syndicate has been working tirelessly to keep them from going rampant and charging the site with whatever unspeakable things they have locked away in containment, but they can only do so much without solid answers. On the best of days, the ADF does whatever it wants first and asks the Syndicate later.

She sighs, downing another sip of her still steaming coffee. The Syndicate has set aside a team of Civserves specifically for the task, and put them under her guidance. At least they had the decency of sending her the same ones that dealt with the evacuation, this is one of those cases where having some undertrained newbie involved could prove particularly problematic.

The fires the light has caused have been mostly put out, yet the area is still cooling. The only way to not immediately die of heat stroke is to make sure to stay in a Hostile Environment Suit, which is an easy enough task on its own, yet actually getting one is a hassle of its own right. Luckily for her, she didn't have to wrangle her superior for access to the HE-Suits, as the Syndicate gave her one of her own specifically for the mission.

How nice of them.

Getting suited up is an easy enough task. Inside the main bag are three parts, the undersuit, the compact suit, and the visored helmet that is simply labeled as a visor. She checks her office for cameras and makes certain that the window blinds are closed before slipping out of her work suit and into the protective undersuit. The last thing she needs today is a Peeping Tom.

She straps the large chest piece of the compact suit on her back like her old school bag, presses a button, and the suit expands and slots itself into place around her. The sound of a faint hum tells her that the internal protection systems are online and working perfectly. She pulls the visor out of its bag and holds it in her hand, the weight a solemn reminder of what she's heading off to search.

Quietly, she walks out of the office and into the parking lot, looking for where she parked her shuttle. She spots the telltale blue chrome and mindlessly makes her way towards it, lost in thought.

When the light struck ground, it devastated the surrounding town. Around five to six hundred confirmed deaths and that number is still rising. Some bodies may have been too close to the impact sight to have left any detectable trace, and most of the populace in the shockwave died in mere seconds. It's a grave tragedy that the rest of her teammates have been dealing with the aftermath of, giving families the news of their lost loved ones and such.

She sighs as she drops herself into the seat of her shuttle, placing the visor of her suit to the side. It's not a long trip, but she's not particularly thrilled to make it. The pictures were bad enough, the sight can only be worse. The engines hum to life and she shakes herself out of her thoughts. There's time to think about how awful the event was later. Now, she just needs the facts. Hopefully she finds something to hold against the Foundation.

The scorching heat radiating from the crater has made evacuations efforts difficult, but now that the chaos has died down it will be significantly easier to investigate the cause. Water boils almost immediately when near the crash site, and the human body is made of at least sixty percent of the stuff. Outside of the Hostile Environment Suit, death would be a quick and painful occurrence. She grimaces at the gruesome thought of her innards boiling her to death from the inside out.

She arrives at the edge of the destruction in only a handful of minutes, landing and parking her shuttle as she leans back in the seat, dragging her hands down her face. With a quiet motion she places the helmet firmly in place over her head, locking it to the suit and making sure she still has full range of movement.

Kelvin, the Civshield in charge of the group, approaches her in his HE-Suit and opens the door for her. She nods at him thankfully as she drags herself out of the shuttle, her eyes never leaving the ashen town.

She looks out over the assorted Civshields, looking into their eyes briefly as she does. They all have a suppressed haunted look in their eyes, no doubt from the evacuation. There's only so much death a man can see before it breaks him.

She nods a silent order for them to follow her and they comply in kind. They trek through the barren wasteland, images of past suburban life bustling through their minds eyes. Puddles of now melted flesh and ash sit on the sidewalks, the foul odor of burning flesh being filtered out by their suits. 

Boiled blood marrs the landscape. Remnants of what used to be alive sit scattered loosely among the ruins. The closer they get to the crater, the emptier their surroundings become. Few loose flames burn away at the slivers of still burnable wood, the bright orange glowing against the ashen ground.

It's a sight she's not sure she could ever forget. If this was intentional, then who could do such a thing? Who could burn away countless lives like they weren't worth a thing? Countless wrathful thoughts circle her mind like bees in a swarm.

They approach the crater, Detective Liv taking the front of the pack and looking down into the still glowing hole as the Civshields fan out over the edge around it. A rounded object sits in its dead center, sticking out like a leaf in a clear pool. The Civshields surround the perimeter of the crater with a practiced ease, keeping a careful eye on the thing that caused all of the destruction.

It's too smooth to be a meteorite. The only reasonable explanation for what it could be is a creature of some kind, but in those regards, it's unrecognizable. She decides to herself that she wants to deem the entity non-hostile in any way, even if just to keep the Foundation from having a new plaything to hide away. Stars only know what they'll do to it.

Dark splotches sit all over the creature's cooling form. It looks like a large beetle, she recognizes. It sits around an estimated five foot tall, the closest thing she can mentally compare it to is a Thelkatzi, but it lacks any of the same features. A hard rounded shell covers it all over, glowing like molten metal fresh from the forge. The ground sizzles below it, sparks of embers catching the remaining grass on fire in a ring around it. It lacks antennae, but the ridged head appears to make up for that.

The creature moves, using its six sturdy legs to shift and rise from where it landed. The shell on it's back splits into two wing coverings as it stretches out, flapping its wings experimentally before returning them to their resting position. It curls itself back slightly, standing on its back four legs and leaving the front two legs hanging loose like arms. If she had to guess, she would say the creature stands at around seven to eight feet tall.

Detective Liv watches as it approaches slowly while still maintaining a safe distance, the air steaming around it. Her eyes linger on the glowing shell for a few moments, noticing how the temperature gauge in her visor spikes when focused on it. It's sluggish, yet seemingly flight capable. If it needs to be exterminated, it needs to stay on the ground. The last thing anyone needs is a hostile insectoid hot enough to melt half a town going on a rampage.

"Greetings, cold ones. I hail from Kepler Namlen, how joyous to meet your kind. My name is Have'in Xomar." The creature greets, their voice gentle, yet rumbling deeply.

"Kepler Namlen?" Kelvin asks astonishedly from nearby the detective, "But that's a star."

"Indeed," the star-born creature agrees, "My species were formed on the surface of the great fire, growing and feeding on the very thing that gave us life. Only recently did we find a way to escape the clutches of our home to visit the galaxy that we have known was bustling since empires long since past."

Detective Liv blanks at Have'in, "You've certainly made a memorable entrance," she remarks with a raised brow, "Your crash landing melted half a town and killed half a thousand people."

"My apologies for the damages, it was never my intent to cause such harm." Have'in apologises with a genuine note in their voice, "My only desire was to land somewhere populated, so that my species could join the bustling galaxy."

Detective Liv smirks under her visor, not hiding how pleased she is to hear the magic words. The Foundation won't get their paws on this 'specimen' any time soon. People are dead, and that is a sad, sad thing. But an opportunity to mess with the Anomalous Defense Foundation? Those only come once in a lifetime.

"Scans show that you'll have cooled off enough to not immediately ash most of our plant life in a couple days, Have'in. In a local week, you'll have cooled enough for us to be able to touch you without grievous harm to ourselves." The detective mentions casually, "Would you be capable of surviving that long, or would the temperature difference destroy you? The Thelkatzi have similar issues where cold freezes them through, so we do know how to accommodate species like yours if necessary."

Have'in chitters idly in thought for a moment, "My species can handle a vast range of temperatures. The ambient temperature of this world will be safe for my survival."

"We'll get a system in place to get you all access to the galaxy without having to shoot yourselves off in some random direction." The detective offers, squatting down to get a slightly better look at the glowing insectoid alien, "Stellar Photosphere stations are difficult to construct, but not impossible. I know the Syndicate has been itching for an excuse to build a few more. From there, we can set up gates at each station, linking up to an orbital hub to help bring things in and out. Throw a few cooling systems in to speed up the ability to get you from stellar surface to starship safe in comparatively no time and I think we are golden."

"That sounds most agreeable." Have'in clasps their hands together as they nod, having faith in the United Celestial Syndicate that they have seen moving through the cosmos for so, so long.

☆◇☆

A week passes and Have'in is finally cool enough to leave the crater.

With them out of the crater, rebuilding efforts can finally begin. Most of the melted gore was easy enough to clean off, each distinct fleshy puddle being collected as best they could for identification before every single street received the strongest power washing known to the Syndicate. Afterwards, the repair drones had a simple enough time of rebuilding the destroyed houses, as well as bringing life back to the burnt soil. The Civshields went back to their usual work and helped with the restoration efforts, bringing life back to a ruined town.

Detective Liv keeps a close eye on the stellar creature as a first contact specialist walks them through a park in the city of Zeghulu. The insectoid seems fascinated by plant life, stopping and observing each and every flower they pass. Being a star dwelling species, structures of any kind are a new concept to them. Plant life is especially foreign, as Have'in spent no fewer than five minutes examining grass when they first saw it.

It turns out the Kehivoha, Have'in's species, have a rich oral tradition, having passed down the history of the stellar system they hail from from generation to generation.

A nameless Foundation member approaches her from the side, earning them a saccharine grin. Their badge is the signature keyed lock of the ADF, symbol of the organization that locks away anything deemed too dangerous to leave wandering the streets loosely. They do serve a purpose, she supposes. There are some things that need to be hidden away for the safety of everyone else, but they could at least work on their bedside manner. The Living Moon of Tau Kaus VI comes to mind, in a single week the ADF managed to go from most people not knowing they exist to several people having rather strong opinions about their work.

The look on the Foundation representative's face when they see Have'in undergoing the first contact procedure makes everything worth it, though.


End file.
